Russia hopes to drag out the war, to exhaust our forces. Such a statement made the President of Ukraine.

“The situation is very tough. Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other areas in the Donetsk region are under constant Russian attacks. There are constant attempts to break through our defense. The enemy does not count its people and, despite numerous casualties, maintains a high intensity of attacks.

In some of its wars, Russia has lost in total less people than it loses there, in particular near Bakhmut. And this can only be countered by extraordinary resilience and a full understanding that by defending the Donetsk region, our warriors are defending the whole of Ukraine. Because every prevented step of the enemy there means dozens of prevented steps of the occupiers in other directions.

I am grateful to all our units and to each warrior personally who, despite everything, is holding their ground and repelling enemy attacks in the Donetsk region.

We are doing everything to ensure that our pressure outweighs the occupiers" assault capabilities. And it is very important to maintain the dynamics of defense support from our partners. The speed of supply has been and will be one of the key factors in this war.

Russia hopes to drag out the war, to exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon. We must speed up the events, speed up the supply and opening of new necessary weaponry options for Ukraine”, - said Volodymyr Zelensky.